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New Cartoonist: Ed Wexler

I’m happy to announce that we’ve added a new editorial cartoonist to Cagle.com and our newspaper syndication package – Ed Wexler. Here’s Ed’s first syndicated editorial cartoon …

In this stodgy old profession it is rare to see new face that looks so polished. Ed has been a creative director at Disney Television for decades and the recent caucus politics inspired his leap to the editorial pages. Ed also had a long stint as an illustrator of US News and World Report (replacing our own Taylor Jones). Here are a few of my favorite Wexler oldies. The first is Reince Priebus surfing with his GOP buddies …

Ed draws everything on his Wacom tablet. Here’s our new Energy Secretary, Rick Perry …

Here’s Washington in action …

Looks a little like Ed Sorel, huh? Wexler studied under Sorel at Cooper Union. This Ronald Reagan portrait impressed me …

Cool stuff. Welcome aboard, Ed!

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Trump and Refugees

The media is energized by the “ban” on seven Muslim countries: Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Those are seven nasty places. I’d like to see a ban on refugees from all nasty places without regard to a religious test. There are lots more nasty places to add to this list.

Today’s cartoon is an upgrade to an oldie that I drew a couple of years ago.

Here’s the original, drawn when the GOP was opposing President Obama’s plans to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees.

My starting point for this one is this great cartoon from our Greek Cagle Cartoonist, Michael Kountouris, about the European Union.

 

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USA vs Mexico

Sorry to be away from doing the videos for so long! Yesterday I streamed my process drawing this one and you can see the whole thing in real time in the YouTube videos below. Here’s the angry face-off between the Trump-USA and Mexican eagles.

The Mexican eagle really should face the other way, but I flipped the bird.

The video below shows me drawing this one, from scratch, on paper, with a pencil.

In the next video I’m coloring the cartoon in Photoshop …

Yes! The beard is gone for the foreseeable future! (I know that is shocking – it’s still me … really.)

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Mexico Flips Us the Bird

I drew this Mexican flag, “flipping the bird” cartoon eleven years ago when the Mexican government was distributing brochures they created to give advice to Mexicans who were hiking across dangerous, unprotected border areas (they should bring a hat and lots of water to drink).

Today the Mexican public is heaping accolades on their unpopular president, Enrique Peña Nieto; maybe this is just what Peña Nieto needs.

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Pussyhats

On Saturday, the day after President Trump’s inauguration, we’ll see the Women’s March on Washington where the protest fashion of the day is “Pussyhats.” The hats are based on Trump Access Hollywood comments about “grabbing women by the pussy.” My wife is busy knitting pussyhats for herself and my daughter.

Since Liberty and Justice are the most important women in government, they should march with Pussyhats too. The idea of knitting as a protest makes me smile.

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California’s “Drought”

We live with a never-ending drought in California – especially in Santa Barbara where I was just hit by a whopping $906.15 water bill for December from my local Montecito Water District. The bill included a $480.00 penalty, a $144.90 “surcharge” and a $44.59 “meter service charge.” The charge for the actual water used was $236.66. I have no idea why I had a higher reading on the meter last month. I’m guessing that the gardener may have left my low-flow sprinklers running – but that is just a guess.

I might try appealing the bill, but I’m allowed to appeal only the $480.00 penalty portion of the bill and the water district charges a non-refundable fee of over $200.00 to appeal a penalty (they tell me my appeal would be rejected because I can’t explain the high meter reading).

In “drought stricken” California we live with the random threat of crazy water bills bloated by penalties, along with our “gold is the new green” lawns. No amount of rain seems to impact the drought perception. Our local reservoir, Lake Cachuma, remains at alarmingly low levels compared to other lakes because it isn’t much of a lake; it is sustained with deliveries of water from the California state water system, which have been curtailed because of the drought. Other, better planned California reservoirs have been overflowing from the recent storms. As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with Donald Trump that the California drought is more a matter of poor planning and poor priorities.

Nothing will turn a liberal cartoonist into a conservative like receiving a $906.15 water bill when the whole state is flooded.

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Trump as King Henry VIII

Here’s my King Trump …

King Henry the Eighth by Hans Holbein the Younger.

This is Donald Trump as King Henry VIII, from the famous portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, shown in the image at the right. That Henry was quite the dresser. Notice that Trump, and Henry VIII have tiny hands and a little purse. I may do a series with more famous king portraits as Trump.

One thing that I have to keep in mind as a newspaper cartoonist, is how the color cartoons look when printed in the papers – the cartoons darken up, with heavy details filling in and cyan (or blue) coming in heavy; this is why I lighten and warm up the colors, which is especially apparent in Trump’s brown, furry vest. I also feel I need to make the flesh tones lighter and I’m always getting mail about how I should make Trump look more “orange.” I added a little white feather on Trump’s cap, which wasn’t in the painting – surely this was an oversight by Holbein the Younger as the feather seems to be necessary!

This isn’t the first time for me with Holbein the Younger and Henry VIII. Ten years ago I did a similar take on George W. Bush as Henry VIII in the 2006 cartoon below. I see that I took even more liberties with the king’s outfit in this earlier, cartoonier version.

There are always a lot of cartoons depicting presidents, and presidential candidates as kings (or queens). During the Obama years the few conservative cartoonists enjoyed drawing Obama as a king as their vision of Obama was vain, self-absorbed and autocratic.

At the beginning of the last campaign there were lots of cartoons with Hillary and presumed GOP frontrunner Jeb Bush as dynastic royalty, including this one I did below …

We saw lots of “Trump Card” cartoons, but Trump was always the Joker in those cartoons, not the King.

 

 

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Cagle’s 2016 Year in Review

Here’s my year in review! The year started off with Donald Trump knocking off his opponents one by one, in a big Republican field.


Trump attacked his fiercest rival, Ted Cruz, for being born in Canada, arguing that he was not “native born” and constitutionally ineligible to be president.

Trump had a famous, short-lived feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, which led him to boycott a presidential debate that was sponsored by Fox News. Trump’s absence seemed to amount to a victory for him.

Bernie Sanders started out strong and threatened to steal the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton.

The Democratic establishment couldn’t grasp why young women voters rejected Hillary and flocked to Bernie.

Bernie hung on until the end – Hillary just couldn’t put him away.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died, and the Republicans would not allow a vote for Obama’s nominee for nine months, in the hope that a Republican would win the election.

The terrible Zika virus spread north from South America.


Ted Cruz and John Kasich tried teaming up for a last ditch effort to derail Trump. It didn’t work.

Trump won the Republican party nomination for president – a concept that many Republicans found difficult to accept.

Trump’s fashion model wife, Melania, gave a speech at the GOP convention that seemed to match a speech by Michelle Obama.

Trump attacked a Muslim “Gold Star Family” that spoke against him at the Democratic Convention.

The media was obsessed with Trump, giving him lots of costly air time – but after he won the GOP nomination, the media turned on Trump and Trump’s support surprised all of the pundits.

Many Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to support their new nominee.

The Party of Lincoln was horrified.

“Pay to Play” allegations about the Clinton Foundation stung Hillary.

In other news, Civil War freedom fighter Harriet Tubman was selected to grace the $20.00 bill, kicking slave plantation owner Andrew Jackson off.

Great Britain voted for “Brexit” – an exit from the European Union.

Highly publicized, and unjustifiable police shootings led to attacks on police and nationwide demonstrations.

Greedy drug companies raised priced and screwed customers.

The Summer Olympics were dominated by news of the success of the American swim team, and then by news of the American swimmers vandalizing a bathroom and lying about it.

The Trump vs. Clinton campaign was possible the ugliest presidential contest ever.

Trump made a surprise visit to meet the president of Mexico – to the horror of Mexicans.

Trump seemed to be fond of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as the Russians hacked the Democratic party boosting Trumps campaign by releasing embarrassing emails through their proxy, Wikileaks.

The race was tight, focusing on swing-states.

Hate groups endorsed Trump – and I heard from many of them by e-mail.

Trump accused Hillary of being too sick to be president.

The presidential debates drew the biggest audiences ever.

“Access Hollywood” recordings of Trump bragging about sexual assaults dominated the headlines.

Trump claimed that the election was “rigged” against him, suggesting that he wouldn’t “accept” the election results if Hillary were to win.

Days before the election, FBI Director James Comey reopened the e-mail investigation of Hillary, an event that Hillary’s supporters believe cost her the election.

Trump won!

Half the nation was shocked.

The election was a Democrat apocalypse.

Trump’s transition was just as crazy as his campaign, with untraditional cabinet picks of generals and billionaires who seem to defy his promise to “drain the swamp.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Trump Christmas

Trump will have a nice Christmas morning!

This Christmas morning scene is something I bring back every four or five years. Here’s an oldie from a Christmas when the GOP was suffering from some Obama successes …


Here’s one from when Obama was eager to get Obamacare through congress, back in 2009.

The next one is from back in 2001 – before I had settled on a good caricature of George W. Bush, when 9/11 was still fresh and all the talk was about the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin.

Notice that there are thick, cathode ray TVs in W’s holiday stash? This cartoon is fifteen years old. Times have changed.

Gotta love Christmas morning!

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Puppies for Putin

Kids dream of getting a puppy for Christmas and Putin is certainly no different. This year, Putin’s dreams come true with puppy Trump and puppy Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson.

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Trump’s Cabinet Picks

Trump’s cabinet picks are heavy with generals and billionaires. Saturday Night Live’s depiction of Breaking Bad’s Walter White as the choice to head the Drug Enforcement Agency made me laugh and let to this cartoon.

It is said that some artists drawings all look like themselves, or all look like their wives – for me, everything I draw harkens back to my Muppet days – and all my chickens look like Camilla. (Camilla is the chicken girlfriend of Gonzo.) I can’t get her out of my head; Camilla haunts me.

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Strong Dollar!

I’ve drawn a lot of dollars over the years – usually when the dollar goes down. Now the dollar is on a tear, close to the value of the Euro, and leaving other currencies in the dust. For us, that means our foreign Cagle Cartoonists get a raise (from their perspective) – but American businesses are suffering from seeing cost of their products and services rise around the world. It looks like this is all happening because the economies in the rest of the world are pretty lousy, compared to ours.

I wanted to make George Washington look like a wrestler, and I made is head a little small – it is about brawn, not brains.

Here’s a recent one, when it was announced that Harriet Tubman would be kicking Andrew Jackson off of the twenty dollar bill …

Here’s another recent one, imagining Lincoln’s reaction as Donald Trump won over the “Party of Lincoln.”

This one is from back in 2011, when it looked like the value of the dollar was being chipped away.

This one is from 2010, when the news was about the Chinese keeping their currency artificially low to steal business away from America.

This one is from 2009 – for some reason those dollars China was eating up weren’t tasting so good. Now I forget why I drew this one; dollars are always yummy to pandas.

When I drew this one back in 2007, we were on the eve of the great recession and the dollar was sinking.

Here’s another one from 2007 when the fall of the dollar was a big story.

This one from back in 2004 was more of a reflection of George W. Bush’s War on Terror.

I actually have more – but this is plenty!